Blossoming on the Internet like a fetid rose, a mysterious new political movement has generated a serious and not un-terrifying critique of modern society. Its members are loud and growing in number, and they demand nothing less than the elimination of the democratic system. Mostly white, male and angry, they lie in wait for the imminent collapse of civilization.

In essence, this movement comprises a broad assortment of writers who are promoting our familiar New Right message, but usually stripped of explicit identitarianism and direct critiques of Jews and their central role in the machine they’re raging against. By limiting the scope of their work to avoid naming specific enemies or getting too specific about solutions, they’re capable of reaching a much large audience than otherwise possible, given the internalized taboos and external disincentives attached to either “racism” or “antisemitism.”

By keeping it abstract, academic, and defanged, it comes across as a rather attractive antiquarian posture, the kind of thing you could promote at dinner parties without any tableware being lobbed at you:

As the term suggests, the Dark Enlightenment is an ideological analysis of modern democracy that harshly rejects the vision of the 18th century European Enlightenment—a period punctuated by the development of empirical science, the rise of humanist values and the first outburst of revolutionary democratic reform.

Apparently, I was hip to this whole “Dark Enlightenment” thing back in the ’90s, before we had a cool label and our own totally awesome trading cards. I read Nietzsche, Dostoyevsky, and (yes, I’ll admit it) Ayn Rand in high school, eventually rejecting humanism and Classical Liberalism at the root. This was before Arktos, Counter-Currents, and the mature community of bloggers, so my education was primarily in sketchy and poorly translated PDF files scrounged from the seedier corners of the web.

I’m still one of these people, actually; I’m just further along. My early fascination with Steve Sailer’s blog posts on human bio-diversity has evolved into a concrete and explicit advocacy for my specific sort of biodiversity. After all, the only tangible difference between “race realism” and racial nationalism is a steward’s willingness to act on the information presented. That, and a willingness to commit our society’s penultimate heresy.

Commission of our society’s ultimate heresy, antisemitism, came a bit later, with my reading of Prof. Kevin MacDonald’s The Culture of Critique. It offered an exposition of the pivotal Jewish role in promoting Modernity and subverting my people, which didn’t indulge in the wild-eyed conspiracy theories and vulgar vilifications which had repelled me from the subject for years.

I suspect a good share of proponents of this “Dark Enlightenment” are in that same place I was in, hesitant for a variety of reasons to violate those two taboos which make one completely New Right. These neo-Reactionaries aren’t completely New Right, because standing for tribe and tradition is more than an ideological posture. To be completely New Right, you have to take that additional perilous step, that of applying the abstractions to our contemporary reality. You’re not all the way there until you’re willing and able to define yourself and your opponents in terms of actual people and groups of people.

Limitations aside, the Dark Enlightenment is a very promising development. Even if they don’t go all the way, the work they do of deconstructing Modernity and its excuses is extremely valuable work. Putting identity and “the Jew thing” on the back burner is often necessary to reach people with our overarching worldview. And I know in my own case and the case of countless others I’ve spoken with that once you get the “Dark Enlightenment,” you’re more likely to become a Jew-wise racialist.

It’s been my experience that those who are pro-white or Jew-wise but otherwise on board with cannibal capitalism, the “civil rights” narrative, and egotistical individualism are generally useless. For decades, the White Nationalist movement has striven to slip the survival of our race into the Progressive body, but it absolutely always rejects the transplant. There is no “white” chair at the Rainbow Table, and there never will be. It will never be acceptable for White people to have their own equivalent of the NAACP or La Raza, because the White identity groups are the only ones whose solidarity would pose an existential threat to the Cathedral’s social engineering project.

White Identity cannot and will not flourish in the ecosystem of Modernity, because the essence of whiteness is so vividly associated with hierarchy, patriarchy, and aesthetic beauty. Even if we can ignore this and convince ourselves that we’re merely another interest group in the global patchwork of aggrieved and grasping interest groups, our enemies most certainly won’t. Even if we promise with all our hearts and truly mean it that we’ll never organize and mobilize the way we’ve done in the past, why would our enemies take that chance?

The author of the hit piece asks, “Is this fascism?”

Desire for genetically determined ruling classes, distrust of popular democratic reform, distaste for the aesthetic standards of mass culture, and nausea over the political correctness of modern life—the Dark Enlightenment does have all the markings of a true neo-fascist movement. It’s here that the dangers of the Dark Enlightenment are hard to dismiss.

Op has a point. Call it “neo-fascism” or some other more friendly word if you prefer, but some sort of political order which is radically different from this one is absolutely necessary to face the challenges in store for our people. Even in more mainstream circles, our failed nation-building projects of the past decade and the increasingly absurd state of our own democracy have discredited “democracy” for more people than our elites realize. While very few of them are willing or able to hop onto our wagon just yet, they’re increasingly uneasy on the “democracy,” “freedom,” and “globalism” wagon. While the author brushes off all the critiques of Modernity and ensures us that we’re living in the best regime ever, he does grudgingly admit that the challenges we’re facing may require radical revolutionary change after all.

It is becoming increasingly evident that major structural reform, maybe radical in nature, could be what America requires if it is to continue to flourish in the 21st century.

It’s not clear what he’s implying here, perhaps we can double down on even more egalitarianism and mob rule. He concludes with a pithy dismissal of neoreaction for having supposedly made an elementary error.

Still, something essential is always left out of the neoreactionary equation. Universal equality and classical democracy are not synonymous with an all-purpose, lowest-common-denominator leveling of mankind.

He couldn’t be more wrong. Equality and democracy invariably result in an all-purpose, lowest-common-denominator leveling of mankind. The ancients understood this, warning against the peasants leveraging their power to vote for more “bread and circuses.” To the limited extent that democracy and equality can and do work, it’s only within a cohesive and loyal community with a shared sense of purpose and destiny. Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone nails this predictable process of alienation from and disintegration of communities down to an exact science.

It’s frustrating to watch all these “race realists” and HBD enthusiasts carefully avoiding the conclusion that perhaps white people have the same right to survival and sovereignty that’s taken for granted with every other group. It’s frustrating to hear neo-Reactionaries carry on about “oligarchs,” “global elites,” and “neocons” while studiously ignoring the overwhelmingly Jewish character of these “masters of the universe.” It goes without saying that Jews will stake out places in the Neo-Reactionary sphere, like the Counter-Jihad movement, to contain any potential threat. But bear in mind that the New Right Lite™’s lack of red meat will eventually prove frustrating for their audience, as well.

Perhaps then they will develop an appetite for what Counter-Currents is serving. I know that Greg Johnson is already sketching his trading card.

68 Comments

First, I’m probably a nerd because I thought the Jack Donovan Magic-esque trading card was awesome. As was KMac’s special ability to reveal hidden forces on the field of battle.

I think Matt has a good take on the “Dark Enlightenment.” It’s inevitable and probably necessary that these ideas first filter through to the public in a form that, though it still makes liberals’ heads spin, might not be as radical as CC. I suspect anyone who takes the HBD + Ethno-Nationalist “neo-reaction” seriously would inevitably gravitate towards a New Right perspective given time. And certainly they’d be easier to reach than most others.

The odd thing is that I don’t even know most of these people mentioned in the Dark Enlightenment that well. I took the Express train.

I too was unfamiliar with most of the people listed as Dark Enlightenment “Luminaries.” Thus the whole thing has a contrived feel to it, like a paid advertising/branding campaign. But perhaps that’s just a function of the fact that I am not really an internet person, despite the fact that this is where most people see me. Specifically, that means that I have never paid attention to “blogs” (not even Sailer)–you know, those places where individuals produce content with all the regularity (and frequently the quality) of bowel movements–and web forums, discussion threads, and chat rooms. The smallest online “unit” of thought I pay attention to is the article or book review, not the “post.” But my primary source of information is still books, which I read for a few hours every day. I think that I spend too much time online, and read too much online, but it is apparent to me that I spend nowhere close to the amount of time in front of the computer that people who are really plugged into the blogosphere do.

My comment has little to do with the article above, but I think the New Right label is absurd, especially since Greg Johnson has said that he is interested in attracting people who are both pro-White and have leftist tendencies. If the “New Right” is about being Pro-White, then it has nothing to do with the left/right opposition. The only reason why left-wing institutions are anti-White is that they are led or influenced by Jews. In the past, the left didn’t use to be about race-replacement.

The label “New Right” is not absurd, since historically the movement is linked to the Right. Beyond that, I think that the essential trait that sets apart Left and Right is the rejection of egalitarianism.

This “rejection of egalitarianism” needs to be further explained. Are we supporting unequal corporate profits? Are we supporting the old time doctrine of the elect? Are we rejecting the ideas of the French Revolution? What does that mean?

Sharkisha: This “rejection of egalitarianism” needs to be further explained.

If I was a communication adviser for the New Right, I would tell them to scrap both the name “New Right” and the casual allusions to rejecting egalitarianism. I would tell them (as already said here) that the “Asian-loving cognitive elitists” from the DE sphere also claim to reject egalitarianism.

What the White race needs is racial solidarity from top to bottom. It may be compatible with a measure of anti-egalitarianism, but the notion of egalitarianism is ambiguous, especially in a multiracial context.

Sharkisha’s concerns, and yours, have already been addressed in extenso on this site, which includes detailed tags and a search function, which I urge you to employ, because I obviously cannot be on call to provide personal tutorials for whoever has questions.

“It goes without saying that Jews will stake out places in the Neo-Reactionary sphere, like the Counter-Jihad movement, to contain any potential threat.”

It already happened. The most prominent “neo-reactionary” is the Jew who goes under the name “Mencius Moldbug”. Most bloggers in that online movement cite and refer to him. Indeed, he seems to be their Marx. Search Tanstaafl’s blog, he has written posts and comments about him. To summarize, Moldbug attacks both white nationalism and anti-Semitism and basically pretends Jews are not a problem worth mentioning. The comparison with the hijacked “Counter-Jihad” movement is very apt.

Who are the People behind this? Until we know them and their motives we can’t be sure this isn’t some covert attempt to steal our fire right from the get go.

At the top it said “Carlyle Club”. That’s thought: any reason Carlyle shouldn’t be claimed by the New Right? As far as I know, he was an overt racist and utterly opposed to the rise of Democracy. A very early Fascist in any case.

Moldbug has made at least one patently ludicrous claim that I happened upon at Steve Sailer’s blog by chance. Despite 30 years of data to the contrary, he suggested crime is not falling.

From what I’ve seen, the general consensus within NR/DE is deep hostility to all forms of WNsm. From what I’ve seen, both the writers and the readers caricature WNsm in terms that are indistinguishable from mainstream ones in their pettiness, superficiality or dishonesty. If NR/DE is not controlled intellectual opposition, I can sure understand how informed people arrive at that impression.

the general consensus within NR/DE is deep hostility to all forms of WNsm.

That’s exactly right. My opinion: HBD/race realism is a bunch of Jew-loving, Asiaphilic crap, the trading cards (most of those featured are hostile to what this blog stands for) are juvenile, and the “dark enlightenment” is a farce. Controlled intellectual opposition? Yes, I would say so.

I’m skeptical of the “gateway” theory – that “mild” forms of “race realism” and Amrenism will eventually lead to hardcore WN. It doesn’t always work that way. In fact, the opposite is just as likely, just as “implicit whiteness” blocks the development of “explicit whiteness” and just as reactionary authoritarian regimes have been opponents of the radical NS/fascist “right.”

It’s just too easy to be a non-WN, non-racist “race realist” who establishes their “tolerant” bonafides by making careful distinctions between godlike Asians and dastardly NAMs, or who, like Derbyshire, promote an “Arctic Alliance” between Whites and Yellows (in his case, starting in the bedroom). Lots of these folks have no interest in making the leap to be “haters.” Why bother?

I’m inclined to leave the door open for any of the NR/DE crowd who see the light, but, in general, those stuck in the NR/DE/HBD scene are contemptible.

Any people who need to justify their inherent right to exist have already lost the battle.

Really intelligent article, both of them (this one and the article that this was a commentary on). I think that people on the internet are becoming more and more aware of the Jews, and this digital presence will soon transfer to a physical presence, as is already happening in some places.

Has anyone read Derbyshire’s latest article on takimag? He says whites are the wimpiest race right now. He can’t pinpoint exactly why but it is definitely not Jewish subversion or Enlightenment ideas. He also refers to us as Gentile whites. Why not just call us non hispanic whites?

I don’t understand why pro white people like him and I’m starting to think he is a designed troll.

This is entirely unsurprising. “Whites are the weakest race” strikes me as a variant on that oldie but goodie “it’s our fault; we’re doing to ourselves,” a theme that circulates often in some sectors of DE.

The Derb, so-called, is exactly what he appears to be, an arrogant, anti-WNst, philo-semitic, conservative cognitive elitist with an Asian wife and mixed race kids. It’s very easy to forget what he is. I have done it myself on many occasions, and as recently as couple of years ago. I spent a lot of time defending him both IRL and online after the conservative movement gave him the axe over that TakiMag piece. Shortly after the dust settled on that incident, I believe in an interview with liberals, he defended the execrable Rich Lowry and WFBs notorious “purges.” He defended them on the basis that there are many nuts on the American Right. This was after Lowry humiliated him on the national stage after years of service to NR, not before.

None of this is surprising. The Derb was, after all, what amounts to paid shill for establishment conservatism for YEARS. Like many conservatives, his special expertise is ensuring right-leaning people remain uninformed on the root issues as opposed to informed. He and other conservatives succeeded in muddling my thinking and poisoning my mind for years on the root issues and their solutions, and I know I am not alone on that score. Never again!

Also, “Gentile whites” is a redundancy, but Derb’s dishonest nuance will likely slide right by newcomers which is probably the point. If that’s how he phrased it, he is indirectly saying 1) Jews are white, and 2) Jews are the strong whites compared to the wimpy Gentile ones. Clearly, he doesn’t want anyone mistaking his stance on either point, not that anyone even slightly familiar with his track record would.

Even if DE is controlled opposition, it’s still advocating a metaphysical and metapolitical paradigm which is commensurate with White Nationalism and antisemitism. Many of the more prominent members of this clique are indeed maintaining those blind spots, for varied reasons.

But they’re blind spots and inconsistencies. They’re vulnerabilities.

Whenever America was founded on the principles of egalitarianism and liberty, it did so with a vast array of blind spots. “All men are created equal”, but people understood that they were to be hypocritical on that subject regarding the negro. Religious liberty was implicitly understood to be limited to Christians and Deists (crypto-skeptics), and nobody seriously thought that we would have Islamic congressmen or that Jews would challenge the Christian hegemony.

It took several decades, with a sustained culture of critique. But gradually the inconsistencies were challenged and ironed out until the inconsistencies which allowed for our cultural dominance have pretty much all been eliminated.

While the Dark Enlightenment is indeed a snake pit of Jews and “Arctic Alliance” types, they’re still doing the hardest part of our job for us, which is compelling people to unplug from the individualist and egalitarian matrix within which Whiteness and antisemitism can only exist as inconsistencies and blind spots.

Prediction: The handful of Jews which are hip to this scene are and will remain outside the orbit of “Organized Jewry”, which accurately sees this scene as too dangerous to pull the usual “embrace and subvert” shtick on. Either way, our appropriate response seems pretty simple: embrace the scene, while relentlessly hammering away at their blind spots and inconsistencies.

I’d like to add that it seems like the main missing ingredient with some of these people is a solid love of one’s own people. In fact, I think that’s one way they at least try to get around being called “racist” or worse. They can’t be because they recognize that there are European people dumber than some non-European people. Well, of course there are and those two articles on CC called “Racism vs. Elitism” and the other about HBD vs. Folkishness are great initial steps.

But how can you teach folkishness or a conscious affiliation with one’s own people to people who apparently haven’t felt that level of belonging on their own?

I guess I have simply always felt that. I’m sure it doesn’t hurt to be enamored of European culture and history.

[DE is] still advocating a metaphysical and metapolitical paradigm which is commensurate with White Nationalism and antisemitism.

This statement might be too general. According to the official DE taxonomy, about 20% of DE advocates a presumably individualist techno-futurism or extreme capitalism, pretty much the opposite of a commensurate paradigm.

I agree with Lew here. Even among the so-called “ethno-nationalists” the most “radical” are the likes of Amren and VDARE. This pretentious “dark enlightenment” nonsense also strikes me the wrong way. They go halfway down the road, either studiously ignore or denounce what’s farther down the road (“more dark” one can say), then they pat themselves on the back and crow about how “courageous” they are to face the “dark truths” that all the idiots brainwashed by the “Cathedral” are afraid to face.

And who are the “dark enlightenment” brainwashed by? Derbyshire and Sailer? Of all the Whites on the “trading cards” who are currently non/anti-WN, how many will become WN in the next, say, two years? 5? 10? How many of their fanboy followers will make the leap? Less than you suppose.

By the way, I don’t consider HBD to be science. It’s a cult. Science at least tries to fit conclusions to data. HBD tries to fit data to their preconceived conclusions. But that’s a topic for another day. Still, I’d encourage CC readers to have a bit of skepticism.

I have occasionally noted here and there that “Synagogue” or “Synagogue of Satan” is a better term than “Cathedral”, a Dark Enlightenment term for the Ruling Elite. The response at Jew-wise sites typically is approving. (I’m not testing that thesis here…)

Moldbug’s a Jewish techno-dork, formerly libertarian. I suspect he’d like to get rid of the current system and replace it with something better–better for the Jews, that is. Moldbug may dream of a Jewish hereditary monarchy.

It’s not a dissimilar path trod by the neo-cons. Disillusioned with the left (libertarian, a Jewish movement), moving rightwards (reactionary). The neo-cons were Jew-dominated and look how that has turned out: even better for the Jews than leftism. A Moldbug-dominated reaction would be better for the Jews than libertarianism. Maybe I’m not being clear, I feel it in my gut.

I would agree the DE is overall a good thing especially if it serves as a buffer or bridge to racial nationalism. What seems even better is guys like Jack Donovan and Roissy because they explicitly criticize globalism, multiculturalism, and anti-white policies w/out explicitly calling out the Jews, something that is too offensive to most indoctrinated whites.

That they mentioned Roissy at all – He of Blessed Name – is quite substantial proof of Divine Intervention. Roissy – whom I have mentioned of in very favorable terms here in the past – comes across as a man who recognizes the Dark Triad of personality traits “works,” however you choose to define that term, abd sees their application in the social and political realms.

I think they missed Firepower, who is on the Epica blog – and they include the late Lawrence Auster – but, damn, if you take all of the DE blogs with a pinch of salt – and some spice, Mentat Piter DeVries! – you can see the outlines of an entire alternative Culture developing that leads, pretty much in a straight line, to something that looks a lot like what we are trying to develop.

This is only possible because of the Internet, where self-organizing communities become self-organizing nations, with coherent and cohesive philosophies. I think they missed SBPDL and us, because we “fill in the blanks” as to what it all means, where it is all going, and what we can DO about it.

The coherent, missing intellectual common thread that holds it all together comes down to Race as a positive force for social organization. I suspect that will come with time, and not too much time.

After all, to quote Kevin Alfred Strom, “WE are going to WIN.”

How?

To start, many tiny seeds.

Twenty dollars a month from each of us to counter-currents will help that happen. Cash in a Christmas card will do nicely. This includes all of us. There are those among us who say “Might Makes Right.” In this case, we have the Real Right taken care of. In this case, “More Makes Better.”

To end, for a season, many great oaks.

This will lead to watching the first transmissions from our expedition to Alpha Centauri reach our Mars Colony – the result of a century of metapolitical focus in the service of the Race – will do, for now.

I don’t have any issue with these folks. I’ve been reading some of these guys for a while now. I would think that they fit under the banner of the New Right. Some of them happen to be Monarchist, and some happen to be Fascist. Which I would like to think of myself in between those two.

The anti-Cathedralites tend to organize themselves into a few camps: HBD, neo-Monarchists (incl. in this category are various Catholic and Orthodox reactionaries), MRA’s (e.g. Jack Donovan, plus a few other probably lesser intellects), and techno-commercialists (e.g. Nick Land, and probably Moldbug). I tend to favor the HBD crowd since they deal with actual science which I find interesting, and their project isn’t explicitly tied-up in a particular religion or economic system. The problem is that politically pretty much everyone I’ve seen falls into some kind of quasi-libertarian category: “If only the Cathedral didn’t favor the lower orders and instead did what was prudent, I’d be fine and the useful idiots would be rotting and out of the picture.” Possibly it stems from the Cathedral being seen as a suicidal-impulse from within the general Western framework, instead of a homicide being perpetrated from without.

If CCs radio is open to inviting a representative of DE for an exchange of ideas, I would rather hear from “Spandrell” than “Moldbug” or Nick Land. “Spandrell” breaks down DE into religous, nationalist and capitalist tendencies. His criticisms of WNsm that I’ve seen are in the zone of real critique rather than superficial dismissal.

Why should CC interview more of the DE? Counter Currents already had an “anti-natalist” interview an HBDer (not an edifying spectacle, in my opinion). Turnabout is fair play. If the “dark enlightenment” is really full of courageous cutting-edge truth-tellers, why don’t they interview Greg Johnson or some other “racist hater?”

So essentially we have three variables current tolerance, current level of normalized anti whitneness and the delta change from the current to the new level. If the delta change exceeds the current threshold then there is a potential. Now understand this window won’t remain open forever, as the next generation will be a customized to a much more anti white life then the previous one, its a conveyer belt. Anyway the key is to ensure that we can turn up the heat on this delta change which is why you see the media suppressing, distorting and inverting the stats to ensure everyone sees it as another random indivual unrelated event. Now what we need is a billionaire to get us our tv station, unless he wants to watch his offspring become a bunch of mud

Controlled opposition? Give me, and every thoughtful reactionary, a break. Many DE theorists are openly in favor of ethno states and segregation.

Which reminds me of the wonderful ethnostate proposal from HBDer Professor Hart. Hart put forth the ideal of a “white separatist state” – with a libertarian capitalist economy – which would include “Asians and others.” And that besides the fact that Hart considers Jews to be White.

Now, there may well be a few of the DE crowd who are borderline WN. Good for them; they should cross that border. As for the rest, they are hostile to what this blog stands form and they are, in my opinion, not friends but enemies.

Does anyone know who coined this formulation “the Cathedral”? I can’t find a clear answer on this. I’ve seen it attributed to heartiste, moldbug and others.

It strikes me as a bad choice given what “the Cathedral” represents inside DE. The word “Cathedral” connotes “White Christian Europe” when the system that it is meant to represent is both anti-white and anti-traditional Christian. Right off the top, there is something odd about this metaphor.

Beyond this, the facts are that “Cathedrals” were created during anti-modern times. “Cathedrals” express the hierarchical, patriarchal, and spiritually-oriented worldview that held sway during the middle ages. “Cathedrals” are works of beauty. The high gothic “Cathedrals” are among the greatest achievements in history.

In short, taken literally, a “Cathedral” would seem to represent much of what some sectors of DE claim to support in a value system, hierarchy, patriarchy, beauty, spiritual orientation, and Euro genius. But instead, they use it as a metaphor for that which they say they oppose, and they do it apparently seriously and without any awareness of the underlying irony that I’ve seen.

Setting aside the historical reasons that this metaphor is a poor choice, discussing the system through metaphor reeks of self-censorship and code-speak. Those are stratagems used by people known for their lack of courage in confronting the system not courage.

There is also the basic issue of clear messaging. As a messaging idea or meme, “the cathedral” is not as clear or concrete as “the mass media,” “the government,” “the universities,” etc. This is the problem with code-speak in general. People choose to be unclear rather than clear about something they think is important in return for a perceived benefit that never materializes. It’s not effective. And of course no one in this metaphorical cathedral is fooled by all this cathedral talk.

Some of my comments might come across as pedantic, aspie-like, stick-in-the-mud hairsplitting. I don’t care. I trust my instincts, and the fact that DE promotes such a poor metaphor for their main opposition doesn’t inspire confidence in me about their intellectual judgment. It’s a weak, deceptive formulation whether intended that way or not.

“Cathedral” comes from the book “The Cathedral and the Bazaar” by Eric S. Raymond. Raymond is a gun-totin’ libertarian uber-nerd who markets “Open Source” software, which he likens to a free-wheeling bazaar, contrasted with “Cathedral”-like proprietary (closed) software produced by companies like Microsoft and Apple. “Open Source” means you can get a copy of the source code to the software and compile it and run it on your machines, for free. Closed Source means you can’t get the source code, you pay the company to get a compiled version of the software to run on your machines.

So all the “Cathedral” talk is very familiar to the libertarian techno-geeks in the context of software.

He mostly talks about “cathedral-building”, because building a cathedral is a long involved process at the end of which is your finished product. Open source software iterates constantly, in the open, letting anyone and everyone join in, testing and offering feedback.

Thank you. I was aware of that. It didn’t cross my mind Raymond’s usage could possibly be the source of the metaphor given how DE applies it. It’s still weak, not particularly suggestive of anything, and amounts to code speak.

“The Cathedral is called the Cathedral for another reason: it’s not the Bazaar. Coding, frankly, is pretty easy. Reinterpreting reality is hard. Nonetheless, I think this thing will come down one of these days. And I would rather be outside it than under it.”

Your observation is by no means pedantic or hair-splitting. Metaphors used as code or linguistic short-cuts reverberate in our psyches and should be chosen carefully IMHO.

I first encountered this term on the Chateau Heartiste blog, where the host and most of the regular commenters are explicitly pro-WN, anti-semitic, and pro-patriarchy, and where a few are explicitly Christian. The association elicited in my mind, correctly or not, was that of an immense centuries-old edfice overarching masses of semi-literate supplicants professing their faith to a well-heeled priestly caste in sole possession of esoteric knowledge of the comsos and its inner workings – much like the money regime cunninglly and inter-generationally erected by the Red Shield cabal overhanging nearly the entire globe; whose inner machinations most economist-priests do not understand or, if they do, intentionally obsfuscate, enslaving into perpetual debt all those who worship at its mammon altar, and supporting other overarching structures such as the MIC, big-pharma, big-agri, mass media, mass schooling, etc.

Moldbug coined the term ‘Cathedral’ as you may have guessed. I hate it also (I proposed the ‘Circus’ ie. populated by clowns and freaks…) but I do see the genius in the term. To begin with, it flatters the constituency it criticizes…causing them to engage. It’s extremely marketable and attractive as it suggests a deep and well thought-out isolation of the critical elements of the media/academy nexus – suggestive of a Dark Enlightenment.
Right now the movement is all brand and no beef. It could use some of the more thoughtful people here to engage – but on the question of the ‘—s’ you have to leave that one issue stick at home. An intelligent and effective movement understands subterfuge and ambiguity as tactics, and when faced by overwhelmed numbers in men and material , as absolutely vital strategy. Without discipline, especially ‘mouth’ discipline – you will go nowhere. The opposition should be pleading with us for some ‘anti-s*mitism’ to do their work with, they should be absolutely gagging for it… as we drop little hints here and there until they are on their knees and have dirtied their breeches with the dark, carnal lusts unleashed by their own all consuming mind viruses.
DO NOT FEED THE VIRUS… and it starves while you go on with your work.

To me, it seems somewhat grandiose to think that the Dark Enlightenment or Neo-Reaction is such a big, important, real-world thing that it has to maintain intellectual discipline on the Jewish problem lest Tel Aviv order a drone strike on your bunker, or whatever. Come off it. Like us, you’re just another bunch of bozos on the net.

Of course, if you guys are really maintaining a disciplined and strategic silence on the Jews, then you would not be talking about it on Counter-Currents.

I disagree that mentioning the Jewish problem is somehow “playing right into the Jews’ hands,” given that they seem most concerned with maintaining taboos about talking about their power and influence.

Thank you for the reply Greg.
An aura of Grandeur is not altogether a bad ambiance to project – one I prefer to, “another bunch of bozos on the net,” at minimum within the minds of our opponents, and such things have costs. I do not represent the NR, I am a critic like anyone; supportive of it’s good qualities, dismissive of it’s pointy-head inanities. As for disciplined and strategic silence – it’s called ‘discretion’ between what is workable at a given point in time, and what is not. On this we disagree, and on that, we agree. The nature of the ‘Cathedral’ is fluid, and not reduced as you say ”they seem most concerned with maintaining taboos about talking about their power and influence.” So an opposition must adapt to what can be observed, as well as what can be deducted, while keeping it’s own plans dark and impenetrable. Clausewitz calls it the ‘trinity’ and advises “the task … is to keep our theory floating among these three tendencies” (‘Clausewitz in the Twentieth Century’ Bassford in Strachan, 2007, p. 81)

Eh, it’s difficult to generalize about these guys. They’re not an ideological movement that agrees on everything. Rather, they agree on a few hate-facts and then each of them develops his own ideas about the correct political response to those hate facts. There are several schools, with ethno-nationalism listed as one of them.

HBD is one of the hate facts they agree on, but the movement is far more promising than conservative HBD sperging was as (in many cases) it goes beyond crime and IQ stats and gets into a far more comprehensive attack on the premises of liberal modernity, including support for an authoritarian government and significant reorganization of society. The “neo-reactionaries” are definitely far more radical than a lame HBD conservative like Derbyshire.

They’re not great on the Jews, but they’re not as horrible as everyone else either. The topic has, at least, been discussed openly on several of these blogs, without hysteria. For now, most of them are sticking to the “Protestants did leftism, Jews just made things worse” line, but that’s still more than most groups will admit.

The other weaknesses would be an excessive attraction to libertarian capitalism and a streak of anti-fascism in some, but not all of the blogs. However, it seems that the primary criticism of White Nationalism is that it is impractical, not that it is evil.

Some of the blogs like Moldbug or Nick Land won’t appeal to most of you, but others, you’ll find a lot you can agree with in others, Radish magazine for example.

Overall, it’s a group you should engage / persuade, rather than dismiss.

In theory we should be engaging many types, including the implicitly White Tea Party crowd. Engaging and persuading is fine. But, the bulk of the DE as it currently exists is hostile to the interests of WN, in the same way that kosher conservatism is hostile. It’s a cul-de-sac, a misdirection, a competitor. They’re not allies. Possible recruits, yes. Misguided, certainly. Congruent to the main axis of this blog, doubtful. And, personally: congruent to my own beliefs, 100% no.

I’m familiar with some of the elements that make up the trading cards. Apart from guys like MacDonald and Donovan – I don’t see anyone else in all of that really congruent to Counter Currents.

Speaking of MacDonald, he has an excellent reply to Derbyshire’s foolishness over at the Occidental Observer, about nonsense that Mr. Arctic Alliance has been peddling at VDARE. I think that’s relevant to this discussion.

Somebody was nice enough to send some traffic to my site, so let me serve as a spokesman of sorts.
I take it this is a white nationalist site. You probably hate Moldbug, and Nick Land is also no friend of yours. To the extent that this is a coherent lot (not much), the DE is disagrees with white nationalism as far as it applies to the US, but most of us agree with European countries kicking foreigners away.
I’m not American so it’s not my problem but the consensus is that white Americans aren’t a unified ethnic group, have never been one, and probably never will. Ethnogenesis is hard, usually takes massive state brainwashing to make it stick. Which is of course not going to happen.

And yes, Jews are evil, but it’s the white elite who brought them in, as it has been since the early Middle Ages. You can hate Jewish chutzpah, but blaming them isn’t going to solve much, because: you can’t remove them, and even if you sent them all to Madagascar, it wouldn’t solve the problem of white leftism.

That’s more or less the idea. The Dark Enlightenment is about studying leftism per se. You might believe leftism is a jewish conspiracy and in their abscence whites would suddenly arise as a sane and antiegalitarian ethnicity. We disagree.

Not that white polities wouldn’t be awesome: personally I’m all for ethnic segregation. But as a European let me tell you that it’s not that easy.

the DE is disagrees with white nationalism as far as it applies to the US, but most of us agree with European countries kicking foreigners away.

Your argument boils down to a claim that the challenge for my people is simply too great to overcome, and that we should therefore be cast into the multicult pyre. Even if the premise is true, do you expect us to just sit back and accept our supposedly imminent fate? Even if we’re doomed, the least I can do is make life miserable for our enemies while I’m still standing.

Once again, the DE is against White nationalism. We can go round and round nitpicking the details, but what’s the point? I’m not going to waste time debating these clowns, I’m passed that, back in 2003-2005 we went through all of that against GNXP and Sailer. Do we have to go on the same merry-go-round again and again?

The best argument that White nationalism in American can work will be if we can make it work. Success wins the argument; failure loses the argument. Wasting time on the HBD/DE crowd is not going to lead to success. Trust one who already tried.

“Your argument boils down to a claim that the challenge for my people is simply too great to overcome, and that we should therefore be cast into the multicult pyre.”

To be precise, you don’t have a people. And you won’t have one unless, say, non-whites start an overt genocidal war against whites which triggers a tribal response that makes white people stand for each other.

And nobody’s saying that you should be cast anywhere. We are not a policy advocacy group, as I said I’d personally find it awesome if you got to kick the NAMs out of the country and found a Panamerican whitopia.

But raising awareness of the plight of your people isn’t going to change things, because politics isn’t about raising awareness, and your enemies aren’t having much of a miserable time last time I checked. Politics has its own dynamics, and nationalism isn’t as easy to come by as you make it sound. It might come easy for you, but a sense of nationhood doesn’t come that naturally to many.

I apologize if I misrepresented your views on the Jewish Question. I’m aware of Kevin MacDonald’s work and find little to disagree with it, but it’s hard to blame the parasite when the host has developed a symbiotic relationship with it. Still I just think focusing on the Jews is a waste of time, people get emotional and discussions are seldom productive.

Of course we have a people. Perhaps Europeans should stop commenting on things about which they know nothing. Most White Americans are mixes of European ethnic groups. The System and the non-Whites identify and target White Americans in an explicitly racial manner. On sites like Counter Currents, Whites of different ethnicities and ethnic mixes work together. White flight and de facto segregation are along broad racial lines. Implicit Whiteness is also along broad racial lines. Even the HBD/DE crowd themselves routinely use “White” and “White American” and have no problem identifying a group when it serves a rhetorical purpose. Sailer’s a hypocrite in this regard. A White American people exist as per diagnosis, but as soon as someone talks about that group as per prescription, then “it’s impossible.” The bottom line is that much of the DE doesn’t want WN, so they say it’s impossible. Isn’t Sailer, for example, funded by Unz, a Jew who once said that (the allegedly impossible) WN is the biggest threat to the future of America? If WN is so “impossible” why do guys like Unz, Sailer, GNXP worry so much about it? They should just let CC, etc. play alone in their little sandbox. But they are worried. They’re worried that when the “Cathedral” loses more of its legitimacy in the eyes of (“non-existent”) White Americans, that Whites will begin to coalesce explicitly around race. And the Jeurasian dream goes down the tubes, then.

And, then we have: said I’d personally find it awesome if you got to kick the NAMs out of the country and found a Panamerican whitopia.

NAMs…always the same. Always the same Asiaphilic crap. Always distinguishing between the big bad NAMs and those lovable Asians. How about we, you know, kick the goddamn ASIANS out of the country too? I know that the DE, worshiping at the altar of Asia in the most lickspittle fashion, may shed a tear or two.

Let me take a more radical and explicit opinion here, for what it is worth for the CC readership:

In my opinion, HBD/DE is the open enemy of WN, guys who say they agree with us about the “NAMs” – but WN is all like impractical and all. Let’s just end affirmative action, crack down on Mexican illegals, and encourage the immigration of “hundreds of thousands of Asians” per year (the GNXP recommendation). And we can have some really smart Jews running the show, like Hart. And then we can encourage Jeurasian admixture, as Sailer and others do. It’s all good!

Instead of praising these bozos, and encouraging them, they need to be “deconstructed.”

To be precise, you don’t have a people. And you won’t have one unless, say, non-whites start an overt genocidal war against whites which triggers a tribal response that makes white people stand for each other.

I get it, we White Americans are slime. But we’re the primordial slime from which ethnogenesis can emerge rather quickly. All we need is the lightning strike.

But raising awareness of the plight of your people isn’t going to change things, because politics isn’t about raising awareness, and your enemies aren’t having much of a miserable time last time I checked.

You assume incorrectly that my work is limited to merely “raising awareness”. I fully realize that it’s about much more than that, and that we’re working on an elaborate metapolitical puzzle.

Politics has its own dynamics, and nationalism isn’t as easy to come by as you make it sound. It might come easy for you, but a sense of nationhood doesn’t come that naturally to many.

There are a multitude of examples throughout history of ethnogenesis occurring nearly instantly, and without a cataclysmic catalyst. The Mormon phenomenon rather recently happened in America, during peacetime, with a broad assortment of White Americans snapping and deciding to belong to a different “people” and put the work into founding the very distinct State of Deseret within a few decades. Mohammad achieved a similar feat, with the Arab Islamic identity being the cause rather than the consequence of tribal warfare.

Besides, even if your perspective is correct, it seems prudent for a vanguard to be grinding away at the prerequisites just in case some traumatic ethnogenetic event occurs.

I’m aware of Kevin MacDonald’s work and find little to disagree with it, but it’s hard to blame the parasite when the host has developed a symbiotic relationship with it.

Those who aren’t in America have a distorted and exaggerated perspective on Americans. Just as the traditional Russian identity remained beneath the carefully cultivated and manicured New Soviet Man, the America which is authentically European in character persists in the small towns, out in the country, and in dissident enclaves within its cities.

Just as history has shown that it would have been shortsighted to damn all Russians because they were infested with and seemingly enamored with Jewish Bolshevism, history will show that those who wrote my people off for good were judging us harshly and prematurely.

Still I just think focusing on the Jews is a waste of time, people get emotional and discussions are seldom productive.

We have all sorts of calm and productive discussions on the Jewish Question in these parts, on balance with the myriad other important issues we address. If the Dark Enlightenment struggles to have adult conversations about the Jewish Question, perhaps that’s the Dark Enlightenment’s fault and problem, rather than the Jewish Question’s.

Something has got to be done to knock down this pervasive misinderstanding that serious WNsts lay it all on that Jews, believe in conspiracies, or that booting Jews will solve the problems. Certainly many WNsts don’t discuss the issue in a responsible way, but many do.

Most White Nationalist intellectuals deliver a thoughtful and nuanced perspective on the Jewish role in our demise, but our opponents must necessarily distort our message to refute it, since they can’t refute our actual message.

The only way to definitively knock down those canards is to knock down the philosemitic wankers promoting them.

Matt Parrott: “The only way to definitively knock down those canards is to knock down the philosemitic wankers promoting them.”

True. At the very least, I’d suggest the following principle as a general approach: “No enemies to the Right of me, no donations to the Left of me.”

This is pretty much the opposite of how the Right has worked for decades, as you have pointed out before in your article about fallen comrades. Our scorn and vitriol is directed at those that are more “extreme,” yet we slavishly support libertarians, philosemites, and other assorted flotsam and jetsam that might, just might, bat their eyelashes at us once or twice before publicly disavowing us and telling the world how we are scum. Well, we’re scum after the check has been cashed, anyway.

The Dark Enlightenment seems to be more critique than solution, for the most part. That suits me just fine. If non-WN (or in some cases, just non-explicit WN) can do their part in delegitimizing the anti-white System, then that’s aces. We obviously benefit from our own “culture of critique,” systematically shredding the System’s mandatory ideology.

It is for us to offer the solution, and I think it is inevitable that the organic, sustainable ethnostate will come to be seen as the best and most appealing option. The very logic of the critique paves the way toward the very solution that we advocate, whether some DE types realize this or not. All other options are either illusory and unattractive, or at best unsustainable.

We need to flesh out the concept of the ethnostate, to showcase its real beauty and appeal. Right now, the System propaganda does its best to portray such a future nation as one of lunatic clowns marching around in funny costumes, throwing people in concentration camps for minor offenses, and general nastiness. Obviously, that’s not what we want, but it is up to us to put forth what we do want, and to employ all mediums in the process: art, writing, and so forth. Critique is necessary, action is necessary, but we must remember to dream as well. Every great cause has its animating vision. Ours is not only a truly beautiful one, but is in essence a defense of beauty itself in a world grown increasingly ugly.

I don’t doubt that Jews or other anti-whites will try to horn in on the Dark Enlightenment in order to put forth false solutions and distract from the necessity of the authentic ethnostate. But so long as that’s not the case, and the blog is simply putting forth critique without solution, they are carrying water for the Cause, which is good.

As a sidenote I’ll say that I hadn’t even heard of quite a few of the sites on the list, and agree with Greg Johnson that it had a certain contrived feel to it. I visited some that I wasn’t familiar with, and many of them were, well, meh. Sites like Counter-Currents tower above in terms of insight, quality and vision. Here you can get both the critique and the beginnings of the vision. Anyone worth their salt will end up on our sites eventually. The rest don’t matter.

Credit should be given to high quality writers that haven’t made the explicit leap yet, but clearly provide a space for our views. Roissy’s site, Chateau Heartiste, wins top honors in that regard. The ethnostate clearly can get a fair hearing there, and I suspect many other areas of the DE as well. Jack Donovan is another talented thinker that deserves praise. I’m sure there are others that I’m not familiar with.

So, all in all, The Dark Enlightenment is carrying water for the ethnostate, and I’m confident that quite a bit of it is more or less intentional. But at the end of the day critique begs for solution, and that we’ve got. Again, any worth their salt will find our Cause.

I have to agree with 8:35. There’s precious little, if anything, in the way of common identity for Euro-Americans. Maybe there was in the South a few decades ago, but not today, and not with the country as a whole. That’s the biggest problem.

I think the New Right is the spearhead of the Dark Enlightenment, since it’s both darker and more enlightened. The New Right is the Dark Enlightenment Extra (or even, it is the Dark Enlightenment), and those “Dark Enlightenment” sites or authors who are opposed to WNism are simply neither dark nor enlightened enough. Counter-Currents is cutting edge Dark Enlightenment, whereas some of these guys seem to be still clinging to the Light Side – the Light Side, that is, the side with less intellectual weight.

I know some of these websites, but I had never heard the term Dark Enlightenment before (but I already love it), so in my mind it’s mostly associated with the following things:

– HBD: This is the basics. In my mind everybody is HBD who believes that races are biologically different, but there are HBD Ultralight people, who believe the difference is only physical, there are HBD Light people, who also believe IQ and the like, and believe in Asian and Jewish superiority, and then there are real HBD people, who also know a lot about differences in creativity as well, about the Jewish Question and the probable biological roots of the Jewish Question. People called “HBD” are usually HBD Light, not real HBD – CC or TOO are mostly real HBD. Without HBD, you cannot have New Right (neither Dark Enlightenment), but you can have HBD (or more likely HBD Light) without being New Right. My introduction to this was fully mainstream Nicholas Wade, and before him also Steve Pinker’s The Blank Slate (the latter Jewish, and not really HBD, but this book was very important to me). After Nicholas Wade Kevin MacDonald’s theories didn’t sound so shocking. If one is not interested in HBD, fine, but if one doesn’t accept it, then one cannot have an effective white racialist politics either. (I can elaborate why.) Some introduction to evolutionary biology might also be needed (Dawkins’s The Selfish Gene and The Extended Phenotype might be good here).

– Genetic Interests: This is the second step: to realize that HBD differences also shape your interests. This could be called applied HBD. It includes ethno-nationalism, racialism, or especially a healthy combination of the two, as proposed by Frank Salter.

– Jewish Question: because of its sheer size it deserves a separate treatment (although already mentioned – you cannot be fully HBD if you don’t notice it).

– Taking our own side even if it’s bad for others: self-explanatory. This is the third step, after realizing you have interests, and others have interests, to act on your interests instead of constantly taking into accounts those of others. I support a dark enlightened white rule (with curtailing black reproduction) in SA even if it were bad for the blacks.

– The possibility that liberal democracy might not be the best political system ever: self-explanatory, even though I would be happiest in a mostly liberal and democratic country, similar to a scientifically sound (on both immigrants and Jews) racialist version of 1960s Sweden. But a country like NS Germany would also have some appeal to me, and I am open to the possibility that some kind of authoritarian or even more or less totalitarian system might work better. It is natural, since we can notice that “liberal democracy” is neither liberal nor democratic, it just has a different set of more or less totalitarian rules.

– The rehabilitation of beauty: the emperor has no clothes, modern art is mostly inferior to traditional art (even if not always totally worthless).

– The “wrong” use of irony: making fun of the absurdity of liberalism.

I might have left out a few important points.

I think the expression “Dark Enlightenment” is too cool to just let it be used by people opposed to us. They are not real DE, because they are too stupid or cowardly to notice or mention a lot of important points. Just as leninists were insisting they were the real socialists, we can insist we are the real Dark Enlightenment, with a lot of justification.

Greg, I think the adjective ‘dark’ does not here refer to us. It simply refers to the fact that we are enlightening the public to certain dark facts – like the facts that some races are incapable of maintaining or creating civilization, or that Jews are a hostile elite, or that human groups in general are in antagonistic conflict and that it is impossible to resolve these conflicts to the satisfaction of all parties, or that total human equality is both impossible and undesirable. These are unpleasant, dark facts, and we are enlightened as well as enlightening the public to them.

Of course people can understand it in whatever way, but I think even this misunderstanding plays into our hands – many more people like Darth Vader than any other character in the Star Wars universe, so the Dark Side definitely has some attraction for most folks. At least probably it’s a factor in why I like the expression so much.

It’s not impossible that later on we’ll need to think it over, though, maybe my first instinct (that it’s a great term) proves to be wrong.

On another note, I’d like to mention that I have a non-White spouse. It’s never really come up, at least I had no comments where I could casually mention it, but I think since I’ve been commenting here for a while, folks are entitled to know about it. We currently have no children (but are planning to have later), although possibly we’ll move to the country of my wife later on. I married her before I became WNist (I was already a cognitive elitist but nothing more), and moving to her country later (she would like it very much) seems to be the only way short of a divorce to reconcile this marriage to WNism. (I still love her, so I’m not currently interested in getting a divorce.) The only drawback of it is that my financial contributions will possibly cease then, depending on how well paying job I could find there. (It’s a few years into the future.)

I was reading this, and although it refers to Jews, I think there might be something about it regarding all non-Whites, and unfortunately for me people with non-White spouses. Asian immigration has not been as catastrophic (so far) as Muslim or Mexican etc. immigration, but as has already been pointed out, in the long run might even be more dangerous. I.e. there is some conflict of interest here. So best everybody knows this about me.

Folks, this is not a church, so none of you need to confess your racial transgressions. The internet being what it is, I have no way of knowing if our commentators or donors or even some of our writers have sinned against our race.

But since you mention it, my advice to you and to anyone in your position is this. If you wish to have children, amicably divorce your non-white partner and find a white mate. If you do not wish to have children, and you are happy with your marriage, then stay married. I would never permit it in an ethnostate, but in the present circumstances, I would rather that whites who do not wish to reproduce, but who feel the need of a spouse, to marry a non-white, which serves our ethnic-genetic interests in two ways: by leaving more white women for reproductively inclined men to work with, and lowering non-white birthrates as a small additional bonus.